Burning Picassos for Heat

Burning natural gas to extract and process oil from the Canadian tar sands has been likened by one industry insider to burning Picassos for heat. But the bidding at the&nbsp"Picassos for heat"&nbspauction may go even higher as those involved in tar sands and oil shale development push for nuclear power to fuel their projects.

Guernica - Picasso (1937)

It is a truism that one ought to match the tool to the task. Energy is a tool, and we try to match the proper type of energy to the task. No one would try to put coal into an automobile gas tank. Even if it would actually burn in the engine, coal is so bulky one would have to pull a large trailer filled with it behind the car--in the manner of an old steam locomotive--to make a long trip without refueling. In our homes we use electricity for most tasks instead of gasoline-powered engines because electricity is so versatile. It can be used to power vastly different appliances. We also prefer electricity because, at least inside our homes, it gives off no fumes.

Perhaps some will remember the all-electric home, an idea out of the 1950s that now finds its place in museums instead of new construction. That's partly because it is wildly inefficient to burn fossil fuels to make electricity and then convert that electricity back to heat. About two-thirds of the energy in fossil fuels is wasted as heat when they are turned into electricity. It is a law of physics that each transformation from one state of energy to another involves loss. We are therefore advised to match carefully each task to the type of energy required.

And yet, this might be worth doing to avoid the folly of using high-quality energy sources to produce lower-quality ones from extremely dirty sources. To see how dirty, one need only take a trip using Google Earth to the section of Alberta where tar sands are being exploited to view the huge wastewater ponds--ponds that can be seen from space--filled with sludge which the industry has yet to figure out how to purify. Extracting and processing tar sands also produces two to three times as much greenhouse gas as extracting and refining of conventional crude oil. Then there is the question of burning huge amounts of natural gas to heat the water used to separate the gooey bitumen from the sand. In addition, hydrogen is stripped from natural gas and used to upgrade the bitumen into something that can be sent to a conventional refinery.

The question then is this: Why not use these high-quality energy sources to power transportation and heat homes directly? Doing so would produce far fewer greenhouse gas emissions. And, direct use of these energy sources would be far more efficient than using them to transform tar sands and oil shale into useable petroleum products. The response from the oil industry has always been that we'd need a different infrastructure. But the answer to this objection is as follows: Why not build that infrastructure now? Why wait until the oil flow tops out at the tar sands and oil shale fields to do this? Why accept the many risks and uncertainties associated with further development of these unconventional oil sources including the risk that oil shale may never prove to be economically feasible to exploit?

Given the singular versatility of oil as a feedstock for so many types of materials in modern society, it might even be appropriate to add burning oil for fuel to the list of actions that are the equivalent of burning Picassos for heat. That might turn out to be the best art lesson of all.

Burning Picassos for heat is pretty catchy. My somewhat more cumbersome analogy is that using natural gas to produce oil from tar sands is akin to using lobster to produce that fake crab meat sold in supermarkets.

Another thought. I'm not sure that the EROI for tar sand oil will ever really pay, but if it has a chance nuclear energy, from my superficial viewpoint, seems like a way to go. The main product is, or can be, electricity, and the biggest problem in the short term is what to do with the hot water, which as I understand it is useful in getting the oil out of the sand.

Sure, why burn Picassos when we can burn the Mona Lisa by using electricity instead! Since electricity transmission and generation is probably the most inefficient method of supplying energy, it takes the extreme even further, making your logic and conclusions faulty. Apparently you only understand the physics when it relates to the other side of your argument.

Since you don't believe the gas shales are real (they are- its rather hard to deny actual production, even if you only cite biased sources as you have). Canadian gas supplies are NOT in decline and your source is two years out of date. You are welcome to use electricity to power the transportation sector, but it will end up consuming twice as much natural gas as if you powered the transportation sector directly with natural gas, and this is what will happen based on free market economics. Currently natural gas is price-competitive with coal for electric generation.

Oil shales will continue to be extracted using natural gas as long as gas prices are at record lows, and as long as more and more gas shales keep coming on line this situation is likely. Natural gas has always had the problem of finding a market large enough to absorb the supply, as well as justifying the infrastructure costs, and any large consumer of natural gas will have market incentive to continue using it, especially while the economic value of petroleum is so much higher than natural gas.

Canada and its institutions - government, political parties and media - seem to suffer a peculiar aversion to discussing or debating the tar sands - their pros and cons - in any substantive or meaningful way including this energy issue. What passes for debate in Canada is a ritualized us vs. them (eastern Canada vs. west, Calgary vs. Toronto, industry vs. enviros) flailing about which does little to enlighten Canadians about what they're doing in their own back yard. Absent meaningful discussion and debate, absent too the trappings of democratic process and public (or private) accountability and we Canadians are left with an extremely narrow conception of the public good as defined for us by public officials virtually in lockstep with industry. The externalities of, say, polluting the third largest watershed in the world or the Canadian dollar's new found status as a petro-currency be damned. This can't be good for anyone - even industry, in the long run. Ironically, it might only be by having the issue moved 'offshore' into the US and Europe to be discussed and debated by non-Canadians that it might finally get a more substantive treatment in the Canadian political process and media. To add some stimulus to such debate – Canada and abroad - some photographs at http://www.beautifuldestruction.ca and http://www.louishelbig.com

I think electricity from renewables which I cite and nuclear would be better used to power vehicles directly. Since I don't believe the hype about shale gas, I think it would be unwise to use natural gas as a motor fuel because it will need to be reserved for home heating and for the production of fertilizers.

One cannot deny that shale gas production is increasing. But three questions remain unanswered. When will conventional production begin to fall off a cliff and make it impossible for any new shale gas supplies to make up for loss of conventional supply? Will we find the capital and water fracturing requirements for shale wells overwhelming and limiting? Will we find that the "sweet" spots now being drilled in various shale formations are not widespread?

Shale gas will prove to be just like any other hydrocarbon resource. We are inarguably getting the easiest gas out of the shales now. That means the hard stuff is coming. It will be more costly and it will flow less easily.

If you read the link about the hype in shale gas, you'll see that the economics are quite questionable. Nobody's going to produce gobs of new shale gas at current prices. Yes, they are going to sell what they've already drilled at a loss. They have no choice but to try to recover some of their costs. But I won't be surprised to see many shale gas players bankrupt in the next couple of years.

Remember that only 10 years ago people were telling us that we would have a glut of oil for the indefinite future. There seemed no limit. I think we are in the same place with natural gas today in North America as we were with oil in the world 10 years ago. Lots of hype about endless gluts that proved to be baseless once you look at the actual reserve figures instead of the inflated claims about "resources."

Kurt is no doubt right about shale gas. As with all energy and mineral resources, we find and extract the best deposits first. It's pure economics -- we are always going to pick the plump, sweet apples before the small, sour ones. We should assume that the shale gas fields now being developed are the best. Additionally, it's generally acknowledged that from here on, shale gas extraction costs are going to go up.

Excellent article. I agree that the proposal to 'save' the liquid fuel motorcar by effectively turning clean (nuclear) electricity into oil is one of the most crazy ideas to have come out of that industry. Let's get the motorcars electric.

Tony you're way off in your arguments about 'efficiency' - a regular talking point of fossil fuel apologists, but a huge distortion of reality.

There are other sources of energy that we can utilize such as wind, sun and water. The utility of those aforementioned sources doesn't also require their own degradation. After that, what we just have to do is to modify the car engines and other engine so as to fit or to be suitable with the new source of energy. Bottom line, if it's possible, if we can't work our way by modifying the "tools", try modifying the "task" a bit or try looking at it at a different perspective.